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As the clock ticks closer to their 9:00 p.m. set time, the band begins to fidget. Amy Eicher, vocalist/acoustic guitarist for Jack Gandydancer, plops down on an overturned speaker cabinet, stretches her long legs out in front of her, and plays with...

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Amon Tobin
Out from Out Where
Ninja Tune
Since his appearance in the mid-'90s, Amon Tobin has released a small handful of sample-heavy classics that were quiet in exposure but loud in statement. Rescuing jazz from the acid doldrums of the d...

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When Heiruspecs bassist Sean McPherson went out to Brooklyn over spring break to visit his friends in Oddjobs, he was sick for the duration of his stay, and threw up 15 times in the upstairs bathroom. Other than that, he said, New York was great.
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Victoria
Victoria
Spitting Kisses
Victoria is giving you a wake-up call. The band's music eases in like a sympathetic snooze button--just a few plucked guitar notes and a shimmery little sample, nudging you awake. A series of snare taps e...

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For most, the layman's knowledge of Aretha Franklin begins and ends with her string of hits on Atlantic Records. Beginning in 1967, Aretha began to assemble what is still regarded as one of the most seminal catalogs in soul history, including songs...

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If there's anything I've learned from the September 30 Bruce Springsteen concert at the Xcel Energy Center, it's that some concertgoers are lazy. Too lazy to keep sparking a simple cigarette lighter during "Dancing in the Dark." (So much for not st...

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You get the feeling that the Crush are sharing an inside joke that never gets old. The band members look at one another with open-mouthed smiles. The only time they seem to drop these expressions is when they're concentrating on connecting their li...

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Rock music: It ain't rocket science. Or at least you won't think it is until you hear 25 Suaves, the guitar-and-drums duo who crank up their amphetamine-loaded skronk- rock to takeoff speed. Their newest album, 1938 (Bulb), sounds like some kind of...

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Voluptuous asceticism induces mania: Film at 11. The soundtrack: Pony Slaystation (Perlon), the new album from Pantytec, a.k.a. Cologne clickmeisters Zip and Sammy Dee. Cue lead track: "Micromission," which sets the tone in both title and sound--a ...

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Iron and Wine
The Creek Drank the Cradle
Sub Pop
Sam Beam sounds like something you'd swig from a paper bag when you're too poor to sip his big brother Jim. The Sub Pop artist's whiskey-soaked folk does justice to his surname on his debut album...

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Jimmy Fallon
The Bathroom Wall
Dreamworks
The comedy album is a funny thing. It's the aural equivalent of a one-night stand: You want to hit it and quit it. Sure, you might desperately revisit it a few times for cheap thrills, but that's about ...

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Girls Against Boys
You Can't Fight What You Can't See
Jade Tree
Girls Against Boys' relocation from the late-Eighties Washington, D.C., punk scene to the New York of the Nineties made sense. The albums the band subsequently released on Touch & ...

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How much experimentation is too much? In hip hop, it's a difficult line to mark. Decades of braggadocio and party rhymes have created a populist standard where brainier, more "prog" elements are discouraged if they fly over too many listeners' head...

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Columbus, Ohio, home of the Limited. Where faux-historic "walking malls" and once-working-class now-yoga-class neighborhoods front as urban two miles from churning Caterpillar fleets. Tornado watches. The State Fair. The Big Ten. Sound familiar? No...

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Even among the freaky human artifacts of the Sixties, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band stood out like six Day-Glo thumbs on an inflatable hand. It wasn't the lanky hair and thrift-store finery that set them apart from their flower-powered L.A. ...

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Remember when wrestler Nikolai Volkoff used to belt out the U.S.S.R.'s national anthem in the middle of an angry Cold War throng at the St. Paul Civic Center? Well, it was most likely for show: He probably went and had a steak and a photo op at Man...

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There's a drinking game associated with American Idol: Every time Paula Abdul pays a compliment ("Two words: phe nominal!"), you take a swig. The idea is that your blood alcohol content might, in some roundabout way, measure talent, a concept famil...

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Editor's note: Vicious Vicious is pop's answer to Loveline: His debut album Blood and Clover (self-released), offers tips on how to deal with a long-distance relationship, how to sensually shake your ass to "Dancing Queen," and which sexual positio...